Coalition: Senators should be given time
to study committee report on Jpepa
Published in the Business Mirror April 16, 2008

By Jonathan L. Mayuga
Correspondent

OPPONENTS of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa) chided President Arroyo’s pitch Monday for the senators to approve the controversial treaty when Congress resumes sessions next Monday.
The Magkaisa Junk Jpepa Coalition (MJJC) said the senators should be given ample time to study the committee report before casting their crucial votes.
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago recently announced that the committee report will be released on April 28.
As a matter of procedure, the senators are usually given ample time to study a committee report before it is calendared for sponsorship on the floor.
Members of the MJJC said it is important to give the other senators time to study the report beforehand, as it is their duty to raise questions and points of interpellation to the sponsors, especially on a matter of great impact to the nation, such as Jpepa.
The Senate has yet to announce the date for the voting on Jpepa. For the Jpepa to be ratified, 16 affirmative, or yes, votes are needed.
MJJC, which has been campaigning against the ratification of the alleged lopsided treaty, described the ratification of Jpepa as “a greater bitter poison for the public to stomach.”
Guingona, an outspoken nationalist who was among the so-called Magnificent 12 senators who voted in 1991 to end the RP-US military bases agreement, rallied the country’s senators to resist the pressure to give their stamp of approval on the tarnished pact.
“The Senate should not be deceived by the specious benefits of Jpepa that are being peddled by President Arroyo and her adherents. The economic and financial gains that our country is supposed to reap once the treaty is ratified are purely speculative and lacking real merits as the proceedings of the Senate hearings would show,” Guingona said in a joint statement with MJJC, a multisectoral movement campaigning for the rejection of the alleged “flawed” treaty.
“Japan’s own study reveals that the Philippines is not a priority destination for Japanese investments, at least for the next three years, because of ‘inadequate infrastructure, an underdeveloped legal system and problems with legal operation,’ among others. Jpepa won’t cure the reasons behind low foreign direct investments, but it will definitely be a grand-scale surrender of our rights as a sovereign people,” he added.
Lawyer Golda Benjamin, lead counsel of the MJJC, echoed Guingona in cautioning about the much-ballyhooed profits to be gained from Jpepa’s ratification. He expressed hoped that the Senate will assert its institutional independence and “fight for the sovereign interests of the Filipino people.”
“The President promises P365 billion in direct foreign investments from Japan if Jpepa is signed, something not found in the actual text of the treaty. Even if it was in the treaty, we now ask: Is that the price for Filipinos to violate our own Constitution, to surrender our lands and seas, and even surrender the lawmaking powers of Congress? If the President answers yes to that question, we hope the Senate is brave enough to go against it. Surely, this nation deserves leaders who can say no to the illegal sale of Filipinos and their rights,” Benjamin said.
Guingona and Benjamin cited the 2007 survey on the international operations of Japanese companies by the Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro), a government-related agency, which ranked the Philippines as last among 18 Japanese investment destinations.
The same survey showed the country as among the top five places where there are many risks of doing business.
The Jetro survey results, noted the MJJC, disprove what President Arroyo said in her speech yesterday at the Yazaki-Torres factory in Calamba City, where she announced that Jpepa would bring in P365 billion in direct investments and create over 200,000 jobs.